So… What Now, America?

The United States has a new president. If you were to create a decision tree — a chart to help you pick and model the role you want to play in American democracy, starting today, this is the only fixed piece: Donald Trump is our commander in chief. From there, you could build outward, drawing a diagram that would outline the various avenues available to you, depending on how you feel about the election result.

Trump’s words about women, Mexicans, Muslims, and other minorities were vile by any metric. But the vitriol both obfuscated and underlined the fact that his voters felt like they were the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the forgotten populace of this nation. So the decision tree for a Trump voter would likely spread out in one of two directions, based on their responses to a single question:

Are you in support of what the president elect said while campaigning?

If your answer is “yes” then you likely hope that he will keep those promises — by building a wall across the Mexican border, initiating an “extreme vetting” system for Muslim Americans, or putting forth a nationalist/authoritarian regime. Your primary option at this point becomes “wait and see.”

If your answer is “no,” if you found yourself repelled by Trump’s words, but supported him because you believe that he provided the best path forward for you and your family, then you’re left in a trickier spot. Perhaps you’ve awoken to feelings of cognitive dissonance between what Trump said about women and minorities vs. what you feel. Here again, “wait and see” is an option, but there are other, more active choices at hand.

Let’s say that you voted for Trump simply because you felt disenfranchised economically. That being the case, now would be the time to get involved as an ally for human rights issues as we all move forward in Trump’s America. Will you educate other members of the voting base on the reality of the transgender experience? Will you fight for the religious freedoms that the conservative-beloved constitution vows to provide for everyone? Will you strive to empathize with the anger and sadness that minorities across the country are feeling, then work to ensure that those minorities, panicked about the loss of basic human rights, will have a place in this new world order?

Most of all, will you be brave enough to have conversations with both the alt-right and the far left? Because you, the Trump voter who rejects hate (even when it was displayed so brazenly by your chosen candidate), represent perhaps the most viable bridge for re-connecting our fractured society. (If that’s the path people decide to take at all, a question that deserves its own branch on the post-Trump decision tree.)

The fact is, Donald Trump is about to have a lot on his plate. He was chosen as a political outsider — the only president to never hold either a high ranking military post or a public office of some sort prior to being elected. Meaning: His situation is completely unprecedented. He has his own decision charts to worry about. So if you’re on board with Trump’s stated goals about trade and manufacturing, but don’t agree with the vice president elect’s idea of LGBTQI conversion therapy, now would be the time to say so. Loudly.

If you elected Trump on the premise of “he’s not perfect, but he’ll fight for the disenfranchised” then this is the exact moment in history where you, as his base, can at once broaden the idea of who is disenfranchised, and narrow the definition of who or what you’re fighting against.

This is where you say, “We elected you for ___________ Mr. Trump, not for ______________.” And you have to be able to fill in those blanks. Because so many people who followed the election don’t know what goes into those spaces. And they’re terrified of those unknowns.

I think that too. And it’s impossible to pull that out and put it in a vacuum, but the conservatives in this country are indeed growing more socially liberal over time, so there’s no reason to suppose it wouldn’t continue.

I agree that each younger generation is more socially liberal than the one before it. Doesn’t mean the map will go blue. GOP might pull their heads out of the sand and start caring less about abortion and gays. If they get more moderate socially, they can still thrive.

@Fartakiss Well not only do you have each subsequent generation becoming more socially liberal, but compound that with the changing demographics. America is becoming less white and more Hispanic and it’s happening quickly. It’s a one-two punch not in favor of the Republicans.
Yes, Republicans could moderate socially, that’s an option. But then what does that do to their older, white, Tea Party base? As soon as the GOP drops gays and abortion as a wedge issue, they’ll lose their older white Tea Party base who will either stay home or throw their support behind future insurgent candidates like Trump and the GOP will just do a complete 360 and end up back where they started as the party of angry old uneducated white men.

Refrained from commenting here today (and probably will for awhile outside of a post here or there since this entire election process and year has forced me to rethink a few things including internet engagement)…..

But this was one of the better articles I have read today regarding the next step forward. For the Democractic, this may be the lesson that is needed to finally reinvorgate their process and start actually reaching out to plethora of communites that is so claimed under the “broad coalition” that is touted. The referundum of this election is that Democratic party has lost grounded on a local, state and national level in government and become to relian on transcendant political figure to lift all sinking ships and finally realized through this result that more needs to done to engage different types of people from a cultural and economic perspective at least.

As for the Republician party, I think Carville said it best in that this is concentration of power in the government not seen in a while so this effectively sets a two to four year limit for the kind of action that can be implemented (especially to core supporters who made up majority of votes for Trump) including the best ways to go about it.

Ultimately, I think the point you make about civic engagement is key as for people who want to complain about the current state of affairs can do one of two things: Vote and get involved in community or don’t vote/get involved and except things for the way they are.

What now? What happened to this site? I used to come to it for the pop culture entertainment. Then it turned into a site where some articles took a jab at Trump, then every article had to have some dig at Trump. Even the damn wrestling blog has to reference Trump. How about taking the path of going back to where the site was a place that had fun articles?

That was one of the most sensible things written on this website, especially since “liberal contempt for the other” has been the dominant theme in most recent political articles (and comments) around here. Well done. So the same set of lessons apply to the Uproxx writing staff. Will we see more of the same venom, or a willingness to engage seriously with the possibility that Trump voters may actually have legitimate concerns, and are not simply some combination of stupid crazy and evil?

Congrats on your pedo leader pick. I support the Republican party and the lobby. Not some dipshit in the comments who wants to brag. We need popular vote and first pass the vote. That’s worth protesting for

Steve, I get what your trying to do and it’s admirable. I don’t think you fully understand the majority of Trump voters though. This isn’t so much a win for Trump as it is a loss for Hillary. Those that lean left need to take a hard look at why a candidate lost to some one like Donald Trump.

“If you elected Trump on the premise of “he’s not perfect, but he’ll fight for the disenfranchised” then this is the exact moment in history where you, as his base, can at once broaden the idea of who is disenfranchised, and narrow the definition of who or what you’re fighting against.

This is where you say, “We elected you for ___________ Mr. Trump, not for ______________.” And you have to be able to fill in those blanks. Because so many people who followed the election don’t know what goes into those spaces. And they’re terrified of those unknowns.”

But I admit, the piece does read like it knows more about the Trump dissenter than the Trump voter.

I didn’t support Trump through the primaries, and though I am involved for my local Republican party, I didn’t go and knock on any doors. I think the guy is a bull wearing roller skates in a china shop, but he’s a businessman and regardless of how great or how shitty of one he is, he’s not a politician. Maybe that was refreshing to some, maybe not to others.

I’m a poll watcher on Tuesday night. My ward has 2400 registered democrats compared with 759 registered republicans (I know the republican number because I ran for office there two years ago). I stayed to watch the votes get tallied. Slightly less than 1000 people voted and Trump was ahead 160 votes. What this told me before I went home to watch TV was that democrats were coming out to vote for Trump, not just republicans. So, while I know the media is “low democratic support is the reason for the loss” I think the real story should be looking at how many democrats actually voted for Trump.

Not for nothing, I know most pop culture/comedy websites like making fun of the status quo, and the status quo is usually a conservative mindset. Also, that younger people are more liberal than not and are the group that writes the most for these sites. I get it and I put it in perspective. But some other commentators noted that this site has really bashing Trump and it really has been beyond noticeable. I know there are groups out there paying the blogosphere to put these stories out there, and I know that blags like UPROXX survive on advertising and clicks and all that jazz. I wonder if that, and if so to what extent, that had on the articles posted here. The negative articles to Trump to Clinton were 20/1. Even with all the crap about HRC that was objectively troubling, most of that was ignored at Trump’s expense. I used to come in here for the pop culture and then some of the commentators that I thought were funny. Maybe it’s just habit that I go on today. I don’t know.

@DarthBile I appreciate those thoughts. I think, to pull back the curtain a little: We’re not naturally a political site, but we are a HUMAN RIGHTS site. In that, the content we support and help flourish, the stories we tell, they are all based in human rights and equality.

So often, Trump felt like an enemy to human rights. As such, our writers often took aim at him. Couple that with the fact that people DEMANDED articles about him (through their clicks) and you can begin to understand the machinery at play.

I am a liberal. Bush, to me, was a politician. I didn’t like him, but he was a politician. Clinton is a politician. Trump acted/spoke like a monster, so he was attacked like a monster. People saw that as a bias on the part of the media, but it was a response to people who were on edge.

I’m not particularly young. One of the oldest around here, actually. And I have decided not to take or publish cheap shots in unrelated pieces. As for this piece, I think it wasn’t about politics, it was about society…and I’ll always keep writing about society. That’s culture. That’s what UPROXX is.

@Steve Bramucci I completely understand your point of view. Question: what were the “clicks” for HRC articles? I mean, if you support her, you’d be prone to click on the article because you want to see what the article is about. That’s why I clicked on the Trump articles. I can’t see why there would be much of a difference to politically involved people.